Rock & roll’s explosive arrival took center stage in the 1950s, grabbing the national spotlight with shock and volume, its dazzling flamboyance overshadowing other genres which calmly slipped onto the scene with much less fanfare.

Martin Denny grew up in the sunshine of Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century, and as a young man during the 1930s, toured in South America as a piano player in a jazz orchestra. A few years later, World War II found him serving with the US Air Force. During his many travels, he developed a love for unique instruments and sounds from around the world.

In 1954, Denny received an invitation to play in Hawaii and enjoyed it so much that he and his small combo set up a residency there. While performing at a venue called The Shell Bar, a tranquil setting with pools of water surrounded by rocks and palm trees and tiki torches, the group started to play “Quiet Village,” a tropical-inspired tune written by Les Baxter in 1951.

At some point, Denny noticed the sound of bullfrogs croaking along with the music. They stopped when the band did, but when the group started the song again, back came the bullfrogs. As a joke, the band members themselves began to make tropical bird sounds as accompaniment. But though it seemed funny, when multiple people subsequently approached Denny to request the song with the frogs, he knew he might have stumbled onto something.

In 1956, Denny and his combo went into the studio and recorded their arrangement of “Quiet Village,” complete with bird calls and frog imitations and unusual instrumentation. It was a laugh when the band members made the noises live, but Denny brought in a pro for the studio recording, one Almy Pullen, known in the business as Dr. Horatio Q. Birdbath (best known for voicing Cheetah, the monkey in the Tarzan movies, and for providing bird noises for Disney for two decades). Denny released “Quiet Village” on an album called Exotica, a title which eventually became the name of an entire genre of tropical-inspired world music.

In 1958, the single of “Quiet Village” eventually reached #4 on the US pop chart and the album went to #1. The exotica genre continued to see great popularity during the 60s, primarily with suburban adults (if you’ve ever seen The Graduate, think of the Robinson family den — they 100% owned this album) and saw a revival in the 90s. It may not have shaken the world like rock & roll, but it certainly shook up the frogs.

So close your eyes and enter the village… with Martin Denny.